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Old Janet Smith lived in a
cottage overshadowed by an ash—tree, and flanked by a hawthorn, called
Lasscairn,— so named, in all probability, from a caim of stones, almost
in the centre of which this simple habitation was placed, in which, even
within the period of my remembrance, three maiden veterans kept "rock
and reel, bleezing hearth and reeking lum." They were uniformly
mentioned in the neighbourhood as "the lasses o’ Lasscairn,” though
their united ages might have amounted to something considerably above
three-score thrice told. Janet, however, of whom I am now speaking, had
been married in her teens, and her husband having lost his life in a
lime-quarry, she had been left with an only child, a daughter, whom, by
the help of God’s blessing, and her wee wheel, she had reared and
educated as far as the Proofs and Willison’s. This daughter having
attained to a suitable age, had been induced one fine summer evening,
whilst her mother was engaged in her evening devotion under the shadow
of the ash-tree, to take a pleasure walk with Rob Paton, a neighbouring
ploughman, but then recently enlisted, and to share his name and his
fortunes for twenty-four months to come. At the end of this period, she
found her mother nearly in the same position in which she had left her,
praying earnestly to her God to protect, direct, and return her "bairn.”
There were, however, two bairns for the good old woman to bless, instead
of one, and the young Jessie Paton was said to be the very picture of
her mother. Be that as it may, old Janet, now a grannie, loved the bairn,
forgave the mother, and by the help of an additional wheel, which, in
contradistinction to her own, was designated "muckle,” she, and her
"broken-hearted, deserted" daughter, contrived for years to earn such a
subsistence as their very moderate wants required. At last a severe
fever cut off the mother, and left a somewhat sickly child at about nine
years of age, under the sole protection of an aged and enfeebled
grandmother. It was at this stage of old Janet’s earthly travail that,
in the character of a schoolboy, I became acquainted with her and her
daughter,—for ever after the mother’s death, the child knew her
grandmother by no other name, and under no other relation.
Janet had a particular
way—still the practice in Dumfriesshire—of dressing or preparing her
meal of potatoes. They were scraped. well-dried, salted, beetled,
buttered, milked, and ultimately rumbled into the most beautiful and
palatable consistency. In short, they became that first, and—beyond the
limits of the south country—least known of all delicacies, "champit
potatoes." As I returned often hungry and weary from school, Janet’s pot
presented itself to me, hanging in the reek, and at a considerable
elevation above the fire, as the most tempting of all objects In fact,
janet, knowing that my hour of return from school was full two hours
later than hers of repast, took this method of reserving for me a full
heaped spoonful of the residue of her and her Jessie’s meal. Never
whilst I live, and live by food, shall I forget the exquisite feelings
of eager delight with which that single overloaded spoonful of beat or "champit”
potatoes was devoured. There are pleasures of sentiment and imagination
of which I have occasionally partaken, and others connected with what is
called the heart and affections; all these are beautiful and engrossing
in their way and in their season, but to a hungry schoolboy, who has
devoured his dinner "piece” ere ten o’clock a.m., and is returning to
his home at a quarter before five, the presentiment, the sight, and,
above all, the taste and reflection connected with the swallowing of a
spoonful—and such a spoonful!—of Janet Smith’s potatoes, is, to say
nothing flighty or extravagant. not less seasonable than exquisite. As
my tongue walked slowly and cautiously round and round the lower and
upper boundaries of the delicious load, as if loath rapidly to diminish
that bulk, which the craving stomach would have wished to have been
increased had it been tenfold, my whole soul was wrapped in Elysium ; it
tumbled about, and rioted in an excess of delight—a kind of feather-bed
of downy softness. Drinking is good enough in its season, particularly
when one is thirsty ; but the pleasures attendant on the satisfying of
‘the appetite’ for me! —this is assuredly the great, the master
gratification.
But Janet did not only deal in potatoes; she had likewise a cheese, and,
on pressing occasions, a bottle of beer besides. The one stood in a kind
of corner press or cupboard, whilst the other occupied a still less
dignified position beneath old Janet’s bed. To say the truth of Janet’s
cheese, it was not much beholden to the maker. It might have been
advantageously cut into bullets or marbles, such was its hardness and
solidity; but then, in than days, my teeth were good; and, with a keen
stomach and a willing mind, much may be effected even on a "three times
skimmed sky-blue!" The beer—for which I have often adventured into the
terra incognita already mentioned, even at the price of a prostrate
person and a dusty jacket—was excellent, brisk, frothy, and nippy;—my
breath still goes when I think of it. And then Janet wore such long
strings of tape, blue and red, white and yellow, all striped and
variegated like a gardener’s garter! I shall never be such a beau again,
as when my stockings on Sabbath were ornamented with a new pair of
Janet’s well-known, much-prized, and admired garters.
It was, however, after all, on Sabbath that Janet appeared to move in
her native element. It was on Sabbath that her face brightened, and her
step became accelerated—that her spectacles were carefully wiped with
the corner of a clean neck-napkin, and her Bible was called into early
and almost uninterrupted use. It was on Sabbath that her devotions were
poured forth—both in a family and private capacity—with an earnestness
and a fervency which I have never seen surpassed in manse or mansion, in
desk or pulpit. There is, indeed, nothing in nature so beautiful and
elevating as sincere and heartfelt, heart-warming devotion. There is a
poor, frail creature, verging on threescore and ten years, with an
attendant lassie, white-faced, and every way "shilpy" in appearance.
Around them are nothing more elevating or exciting than a few old sticks
of furniture, sooty rafters, and a smoky atmosphere. Surely imbecility
has here clothed herself in the forbidding garb of dependence and
squalid poverty! The worm that crawls into light through the dried
mole-hill, all powdered over with the dust from which it is escaping, is
a fit emblem of such an object and such a condition. But over all this
let us pour the warm and glowing radiance of genuine devotion! The roots
of that consecrated ash can bear witness to those half-articulated
breathings, which connect the weakness of man with the power of God,—the
squalidness of poverty with the radiant richness of divine grace. Do
those two hearts, which under one covering now breathe forth their
evening sacrifice in hope and reliance—do they feel, do they acknowledge
any alliance with the world’s opinions, the world’s artificial and cruel
distinctions? If there be one object more pleasing to God and to the
holy ministers of His will than another, it is this—age uniting with
youth, and youth with age, in the giving forth into audible, if not
articulate expression, the fulness of the devout heart!
Lord W——, whose splendid
residence stands about fifteen miles distant from Lasscairn, happened to
be engaged in a hunting expedition in the neighbourhood of this humble
and solitary abode, and having separated from his attendants and
companions, he bethought himself of resting for a little under a roof,
however humble, from which he saw smoke issuing. But when he put his
thumb to the latch it would not move; and after an effort or two, he
applied first his eye, and lastly his ear, to the keyhole, to ascertain
the presence of the inhabitants. The solemn voice of fervent prayer met
his ear, uttered by a person evidently not in a kneeling, but in an
erect position; he could, in short, distinctly gather the nature and
tendency of Janet’s address to her Maker.
She was manifestly engaged in asking a blessing on her daily meal, and
was proceeding to enumerate, with the voice of thanksgiving, the many
mercies with which, under God’s good providence, she and hers had been
visited. After an extensive enumeration, she came at last to speak of
that ‘ample provision’ on which she was now imploring a blessing. In
this part of her address she dwelt with peculiar cheerfulness, as well
as earnestness of tone, on that goodness which had provided so
bountifully for her, whilst many better deserving than she were worse
circumstanced. The whole tenor of her prayer tended to impress the
listener with the belief that Janet’s board, though spread in a humble
hut, must be at least amply supplied with the necessaries of life. But
what was Lord W——’s surprise, on entrance, to find that a round oaten
bannock, toasting before a brick at a peat fire, with a basin of whey,
—the gift of a kind neighbour,—composed that ‘ample and bountiful
provision’ for which this humble, but contented and pious woman
expressed so much gratitude! Lord W—— was struck with the contrast
between his own condition and feelings and those of this humble pair;
and, in settling upon Janet and her inmate six pounds a-year for life,
he enabled her to accommodate herself with a new plaid and black silk
hood, in which she appeared, with her granddaughter, every Sabbath,
occupying her well-known and acknowledged position on the lowest step of
the pulpit stair, and paying the same respect to the minister in passing
as if she had been entirely dependent on her own industry and the good
will of her neighbours as formerly. |
